Van der Garde scores first GP2 win

Van der Garde spent the entire race being chased by Super Nova's Luca Filippi, with the gap between the pair never stretching to more than a few tenths of a second.

He also had to survive a restart late in the race when the safety car was brought out to allow the track to be cleaned after Ricardo Teixeira spun and dragged most of the gravel trap back onto the circuit with him, but the Dutchman kept his cool, took advantage of the tight Hungaroring layout, and led Filippi across the line by a scant 0.3 seconds.

The fight for the top positions was close all the way through, with Filippi's team-mate Javier Villa running in third for most of the distance before spinning back to fifth, paving the way for Lucas di Grassi and Romain Grosjean to fight it out for the final podium place.

Grosjean's best chance came on the restart, but di Grassi (Racing Engineering) was able to defend the Addax driver's attack and held on to third; the top four cars being covered by just 1.6s at the finish.

Davide Rigon's hopes of capitalising on pole were dashed early when he was beaten into the first corner by van der Garde and then harpooned a couple of corners later by ART's Pastor Maldonado. The Venezuelan was dealt a drive-through penalty although that was little consolation to Trident driver Rigon, whose race was over. Maldonado was also destined for an early shower after he spun off the track immediately following his penalty.

Series leader Nico Hulkenberg (ART) just missed out on the final point by finishing seventh; that honour instead going to Alvaro Parente, whose sixth place salvalaged something from what was otherwise a disappointing weekend for Ocean Racing Technology.

Pos  Driver               Team                  Time/Gap
 1.  Giedo van der Garde  iSport              44m17.552s
 2.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova           +  0.385s
 3.  Lucas di Grassi      Racing Engineering   +  1.078s
 4.  Romain Grosjean      Addax                +  1.699s
 5.  Javier Villa         Super Nova           +  2.093s
 6.  Alvaro Parente       Ocean                +  3.461s
 7.  Nico Hulkenberg      ART                  +  3.748s
 8.  Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                 +  4.089s
 9.  Davide Valsecchi     Durango              +  4.820s
10.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean                + 10.341s
11.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering   + 11.731s
12.  Vitaly Petrov        Addax                + 11.822s
13.  Roldan Rodriguez     Piquet               + 12.353s
14.  Edoardo Mortara      Arden                + 13.112s
15.  Diego Nunes          iSport               + 13.662s
16.  Sergio Perez         Arden                + 15.157s
17.  Andreas Zuber        Fisichella           + 21.727s
18.  Franck Perera        DPR                  + 22.046s
19.  Ricardo Teixeira     Trident              + 25.285s
20.  Nelson Panciatici    Durango              + 39.825s

Retirements:

     Alberto Valerio      Piquet               26 laps
     Jerome D'Ambrosio    DAMS                 19 laps
     Luiz Razia           Fisichella           18 laps
     Pastor Maldonado     ART                  9 laps
     Davide Rigon         Trident              0 laps
     Michael Herck        DPR                  0 laps